With Halloween on the horizon, here are some of the most interesting things seen as a precursor.

— What would Halloween be without an alien item? Sue at the Village Inn always teases me about when I plan to do my expose on the object that fell from the sky a few miles northwest of here and plunged to the bottom of a lake. TV news outlets broke the story, and even said a government UFO team was called in to check just what the object happened to be. However, there never was a followup story on what they found, although it seemingly was not Chicken Little. This caused this intrepid reporter to suggest that it was Brett Favre’s private jet flying through to the Twin Cities, and dropping a refrigerator full of beer to lighten the load. (It was about the time Favre signed with the Vikings). To this day, most times I see Sue I suggest a solution.
— Back at Guv’s Place in Houlton, the “Guv” himself has set the bar high for costuming and will have trouble this year beating what he did in an earlier Halloween. He shaved part of his head and styled it to look like that of a monk — to the point that some regulars didn’t even recognize him. Then there’s Duke, a salesperson who frequents Dick’s Bar, and says that in his youth he also had an everyday, non-Halloween Mohawk that raised his height a half-foot.
— Guv’s has its share of patrons who are subbing at professionally-done haunted houses and other such attractions in the Cities. Recently, one guy who was still in his mask, pressed his face against the glass door and scarily rubbed it around before making a more conventional entry. (At which time, fittingly, a song by Rob Zombie was playing on the jukebox). He also carved a pumpkin to give it a grimace and had it spewing seeds out of its mouth, like someone who’s imbibed too much.
— At Hefty’s Roadhouse, a new place in Bayport that formerly housed Captain’s, one of the servers plans to dress up as the cartoon character Jasmine, although she adds her outfit will be too sexy for some of Jasmine’s young fans. Kind of like her namesake at Green Mill, who was stunning last year as the leatherclad Olivia Newton-John character in Grease.
— Also at Green Mill recently, a male patron got a head start on the holiday by donning a blond wig — and constantly tossing his hair — all while playing the hair band Poison on the jukebox. This led the slightly balding guy across the room to say he wished he had some of those locks. None of them, however, can compare to the waist-length blond hair of their server.
— Back at Hefty’s, one of “Jasmine’s” co-workers said the theme of a recent Halloween party in her family was — what else — dress up as another family member. The other day, she was dressed in what looked like the outfit of the spokesperson for the new Farmer’s Daughter beer, although adding that wasn’t by design since she had heard of the brew, but had never seen it offered. That could be a theme, since recently at a place that does serve plenty of it on tap, but temporarily ran out, the plastic cup that was put over the top of the lever to show it was unavailable would not fit. The top was square, and this literally was like putting a square peg in a round hole.
— This Halloween sign hung on the door to a men’s bathroom says it all: “Insane Asylum.”